Murphy's Return

This is Murphy.

Murphy lives in Kilchoan and, as you would expect of a cat from such a sought-after address, he is a gentleman of considerable wisdom and independence.

Murphy has just returned from holiday. Since Murphy doesn't believe in doing things by halves, he's been away for seven weeks. Unfortunately he failed to tell the people who 'do' for him at home - John and Jacqui Chapple - where he was going, and when he was due back, so they've been rather worried.

Last Thursday, Murphy reappeared. He graciously accepted the offer of a lift from Jane McNicol who found him standing by the side of the road on her way home from work. When she dropped him off at the Steading, Jacqui and John were amazed at how trim and healthy he looked.

Murphy, of course, was faintly puzzled by all the fuss that was made of him. However, grudgingly, he finally agreed that Jacqui and John, who run local business Steading Holidays, should celebrate his reappearance by providing their customers with a couple of outstanding special offers on houses available next week. They are here.

The Changing of the Seasons

There's a sense of change in the air. Summer is coming to an end. Autumn stands at the door. One can feel it in the earlier evenings, in the stillness across the Sound....

....in the clouds that linger across Ben Hiant....

....and in the wildfowl resting in the shallows before they begin to migrate.

The summer jobs around the fields are done: most of the silage is made and baled....

....and the sheep and lambs have been brought in from the common grazings on the hills to be clipped and tagged.

The Glasgow weeks are past, when the number of visitors peaks. The Scottish schools are going back over the next three days, though we'll have the English children and their parents around for a couple more weeks. It's been another good season with plenty of visitors. They've been fun, it's been good to see both old friends and newcomers, but for those who serve in the shops and hotels, who work in the visitor centres, who clean the houses and caravans between lets, it's been hard work. There's a feeling of gentle weariness around the place, a sense that autumn is coming but it's welcome, that even the prospect of winter isn't too bad.

Then, in a couple of months' time, the gales will have come and, cosy as it is around a winter fire, we'll be looking forward to another busy summer.

Thanks to Rachael for the photo of the Sound of Mull.

The Ardnamurchan Desert

In amongst this pile of rocks along the beach at the bay called Camas Choire Mhuilinn (Grid Reference NM517630), below Ben Hiant, is a boulder which has an unusual pattern in it. I don't know enough about the geology of the area to be at all sure that I'm right in my interpretation but, if I am, then this area was once a pan.

A pan, in this sense, is an occasional lake in a desert. For most of the time, sometimes for years, it's dry, so dry the mud brought down by the rare floods cracks in a recognisable hexagonal pattern. When the next flood occurs, the cracks are filled with new mud. This photo shows mud cracks in New Mexico (thanks to Jared on Flickr). I think the Kilchoan boulder shows the same pattern.

If it does - and there are some similar rocks along the end of Ormsaigbeg - then Ardnamurchan, as well as once being a volcano and buried in ice, was also a desert.

Bumble Bees

It's typical really... the nicest weekend weather-wise we've had all August in Kilchoan is the weekend my parents go away to London...where it might well be raining right now. My poor Mum! She's been looking for this weather to go for a swim in the sea, and she's probably going to miss it.

Anyway, here's a photo of another big fan of the nice weather - a bumble bee in Ormsaigbeg. I read an interesting article about bumble bees and crofting recently. Apparently certain crofting areas of the North West Highlands are sanctuaries for bumble bees, but were even more so in the past when crofters would move their sheep into the uplands, and the bees would make use of the empty fields. According to the article, bumble bees are struggling more so nowadays because the sheep are not moved in the summer, so there are some sharing difficulties.

Anyway, enjoy the weather everyone!

RH

The Pace of Life

This is West Ardnamurchan, where the pace of life is a little different.

Can you imagine doing this on the northbound carriageway of the M6? Or the westbound M8? Somehow, the motorists here have slowed down, to match the pace of life.

Mind you, the Diary wouldn't be seen being as energetic as this: it prefers to leave such things to the younger generation.